Electric rates

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  • LCHIEN
    Internet Fact Checker
    • Dec 2002
    • 20913
    • Katy, TX, USA.
    • BT3000 vintage 1999

    Electric rates

    My electric contract which I signed 10 months ago has worked out to 9 cents per KWH. for the last 12 months. including all rates and fees.
    Looking at the new rate plans, applying the actual rate + fees to my usage for the last 12 months, will work out to be just over 4 cents per KWH

    Its sort of not surprising after having heard that natural gas is replacing coal rapidly and natural gas supplies are cheap due to shale fracking success.
    They said Nat Gas now provides 32% of the US electricity generation and coal just 30%.

    Anyone else seeing rates that low?
    Loring in Katy, TX USA
    If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
    BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions
  • capncarl
    Veteran Member
    • Jan 2007
    • 3564
    • Leesburg Georgia USA
    • SawStop CTS

    #2
    I hope that our shift to natural gas does not turn out to be the wrong move. Experts say the supply will carry us for many many years. I hope they are right. By the time natural gas runs out the EPA will have completely killed the coal industry, all of our coal powered generators will be gone, the coal mines will be abandoned and covered up and the coal workers gone. Then what will we do? Buy power from China?
    LCHIEN, sorry, didn't mean to divert the thread, it just slipped out.
    I'm digging in the bill sorter to find my utility bill now.

    capncarl

    Comment

    • Stytooner
      Roll Tide RIP Lee
      • Dec 2002
      • 4301
      • Robertsdale, AL, USA.
      • BT3100

      #3
      Hopefully solar, wave, wind and water.
      Lee

      Comment

      • twistsol
        Veteran Member
        • Dec 2002
        • 2892
        • Cottage Grove, MN, USA.
        • Ridgid R4512, 2x ShopSmith Mark V 520, 1951 Shopsmith 10ER

        #4
        We are at 9.2 cents per KWH as a base rate, but when you add the service fees, taxes, meter charge ... it worked out to about 14.5 cents per KWH last month. One of the world's largest wind farms is in southwest Minnesota on the Buffalo Ridge, we have a nuke plant about thirty miles from here and they built a small supplemental natural gas plant just outside of town a few years ago.

        When we lived in Marshall, MN which on the northern edge of the buffalo ridge wind farm, we paid 2.6 cents per KWH which was about a third of what rate was when we moved here. The Co-Op there supplied its customers with 100% wind power from turbines it owned.

        Eventually some bright inventor will solve the problem in a clean renewable way ... accompanied by political fear mongering and protests for and against the solution led mostly by the ignorant.
        Chr's
        __________
        An ethical man knows the right thing to do.
        A moral man does it.

        Comment

        • JimD
          Veteran Member
          • Feb 2003
          • 4187
          • Lexington, SC.

          #5
          I guess I could divide out my bill but I don't much care. Most months my electric bill, to heat or cool my house, drive the well pump, drive the irrigation well pump, power the lights and all the tools and electronics is less than my bill for dish, phone and internet. I think my electricity is cheap when compared to my entertainment package. I will have something different for entertainment in a few months

          But back on at least a related topic. Every way to generate electricity has issues. The biggest issue I see with natural gas is when the weather gets really cold, a lot of electricity generating stations are on interruptable supplies and their gas gets turned off when we need the electricity most - so we can still have gas to heat our houses (but not without the blower). Solar only works in the daytime - ever need electricity at night? Wind only has rated capacity at winds of exactly the right speed - not too fast or slow. Every need electricity when the wind was blowing hard or soft? There is good infrastructure for coal and it works around the clock (although in brutal weather the coal piles can freeze up solid if the utility isn't careful) but it emits things we don't like (CO2, radiation (more than a nuclear plant), and trace amounts of mercury and other nasties). The form of electricity production that works around the clock and emits nothing is nuclear. But lots of people are afraid of it. And the capital cost is high (although not higher than the trendy wind and solar if the credits go away) but the fuel cost is really low. Lots of us in the industry believe nuclear gets an undeservedly bad rap.

          I would like to pay less, don't get me wrong, but I think we get a pretty good deal on electricity. I just hope the government doesn't kill he deal forcing utilities to put in undependable wind and solar and nearly prohibiting through regulation the only reliable and clean source of electricity. By ignoring facts and favoring uninformed public opinion (which really isn't anti-nuclear despite what you hear on the evening news) we run the risk of paying more and having less dependable power supplies.

          Comment

          • Black wallnut
            cycling to health
            • Jan 2003
            • 4715
            • Ellensburg, Wa, USA.
            • BT3k 1999

            #6
            Originally posted by Stytooner
            Hopefully solar, wave, wind and water.
            As near as I can tell we pay close to 9 cents per kwh, before fees taxes etc. Our local utility has invested heavily in wind. Hydro power is very available around here. I've read that in spite of all this that a large amount of our electricity comes from coal fired plants in Montana, 31% while most of the hydro power that is produced is sent to California. Add to that and the dams are almost never run at anywhere near capacity.

            I seriously question if wind is cost effective.
            Last edited by Black wallnut; 06-30-2015, 02:22 PM.
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            Comment

            • JimD
              Veteran Member
              • Feb 2003
              • 4187
              • Lexington, SC.

              #7
              I inadvertently left our hydro in my prior post. There is damage to fish by hydro turbines but they are as low impact as any source of generation. Capital cost is really high in most cases but fuel cost is zero. They are a good option, I would say first option. In most areas, however, of the U. S. we are maxed out on commercial hydro. There may be water with some velocity but not enough to make a project viable.

              The question as I see it is after you've installed hydro where you can make a go of it, what do you do next? I think gas is a really good "peaking" type plant if your peak load is air conditioning. You can start and stop gas turbines pretty easily. Starting and stopping a big coal or nuclear unit is not nearly so easy. Gas as base load - always on - power I don't like because I think the fuel is too easy to use a bunch of other ways and we can make our electricity with other fuel that is not so useful elsewhere. There are very few uses for low enriched uranium other than making electricity, for instance. Coal works well but has environmental issues. Wind and solar, at this point, I see as messing around. It's not that you can't do it, it's whether it is commercially viable. The installations we have are not old enough to have proven they can run long enough to earn payback for their owners. By contrast, we have 40 and even 50 year old nuclear plants with capacity factors (max actual kwh divided by max capacity times all the hours in the time period) over 90%. Solar and wind are never going to get to a 90%+ capacity factor. That is one of the reasons I do not see them as more than messing around. Wind and solar only work when you have another plant around to back them up when they aren't making much, if any, power. Undependable power is not what I want at my house.

              Comment

              • atgcpaul
                Veteran Member
                • Aug 2003
                • 4055
                • Maryland
                • Grizzly 1023SLX

                #8
                I can't even figure out what our base rate is. There's at least 8 different $/kWh fees on my bill. Simply, though, it's 14.6cents/kWh.

                Comment

                • BadeMillsap
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2005
                  • 868
                  • Bulverde, Texas, USA.
                  • Grizzly G1023SL

                  #9
                  I just check mine ... $.0691/Kwh ... That's San Antonio CPS ... I'm sure that DOESN'T include fees etc...
                  "Like an old desperado, I paint the town beige ..." REK
                  Bade Millsap
                  Bulverde, Texas
                  => Bade's Personal Web Log
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